The Left and Brexit
In June 2016 I wrote two short pieces for a New Zealand audience that were published on the ISO website. One of these was written just before, and the other just after, the British referendum on whether to remain or leave the European Union. In the first piece I put the argument for voting remain. […]
Rebel Lives: Walter Benjamin
Walter Benjamin was a German-Jewish writer who was born in Berlin in 1892 to a wealthy family with a background in banking and antiques trading. In 1912 he enrolled at university where he studied philosophy and developed a lifelong interest in Romantic literature and poetry. It was also at university that Benjamin first encountered the […]
Paris, 1968: 50 years since the barricades
May 1968 is the date of the largest general strike in French history. Over the course of this month, 11 million workers joined a protest which was explicitly anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and revolutionary. As a result of the strike national production came to a grinding halt, conservative president Charles de Gaulle fled the country and a […]
Rebel Lives: Clara Zetkin
A federal election in Germany was held on 31 July 1932 in the depths of the Great Depression and a political crisis. The Nazis obtained the largest share of the vote and 230 seats in the 608-seat Reichstag. On 30 August the oldest member had the honour of opening the session of the newly-elected parliament. […]
For the many, not the few: Labour in Britain shows we deserve better here
Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party has delivered a stunning blow against the Tories and British Labour’s rightwing Blairites. Theresa May might not survive as Tory leader. With most of the British general election results declared the upshot is a hung parliament. The general election has dramatically shown the power of simple leftwing policies “For the Many, […]
Debating the Brexit
Around the world socialists are digesting the outcome of the UK referendum vote to leave the European Union. British socialists, and their international co-thinkers, were divided on the referendum question both between and within their organisations. The debate continues here. Martin replies to Tom Bramble’s analysis in Red Flag. Tom Bramble’s analysis of the British […]
After the Brexit: Fighting Racism
Kevin Hodder sent these notes from London: I awoke in London to a shock. Travelling from New Zealand and only briefly abroad, I only had a relatively tenuous grasp on the debates going on in the UK around the “Brexit” vote. The details of these debates are not for me to cover. Irrespective of why […]
Should workers in Britain vote to Leave the EU?
The referendum on Britain’s continued membership of the EU takes place on Thursday 23 June. Aotearoa has been touched by the referendum in a couple of ways. Winston Peters has not hesitated to give the British the benefit of his advice. Rightwing, anti-immigrant populist that he is, Peters is for a Brexit. On Saturday 18 […]
French workers rise up against attacks on labour rights
Clément is a university professor in Paris. He is 32 years old and has been an activist in the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) since it was founded in 2009. He responds to the ISO’s questions on about the social movement against the labour law in France. Translation was provided by Brittany Travers and Cory Anderson. […]
Greece and the international situation
The following was presented at the ISO national conference in November 2015 We are living in historic times. As if in the blink of an eye we have seen revolutions sweep the Middle East, only to descend into bloody civil war, the devastation of the Greek economy and the emergence in Greece, within five years, […]
